Angelina Jolie: I Thought I’d Marry an Aid Worker, Not Fall for Brad Pitt
Angelina Jolie says she didn’t expect to fall for Brad Pitt.
“After my last divorce, I said I was absolutely going to marry somebody in another field, an aid worker or something,” she reveals in July’s Vanity Fair.
“Then I met Brad, everything I wasn’t looking for, but the best man, the best father I could possibly wish for, you know?” she adds. “I don’t see him as an actor. I see him very much as a dad, as somebody who loves travel and architecture more than being in movies.”
Although Pitt, 44, seems to have taken more of an interest in humanitarian causes since their romance, Jolie, 32, says his passion for international affairs “was actually one of the things that brought us together.
“Though he wasn’t as publicly active,” she adds, “I found him to be very aware of the world, very curious, very compassionate. In his private way, he had been doing a lot. When we met, we realized our common goals were that we both wanted to be involved in the world and see what we could do.
“When it comes to common goals — orphans, orphans’ rights, children — we support each other,” she goes on. “It brings us together and makes our relationship work.”
Jolie also says that “people have made a lot out of it that we’re not, but we both have been married before, and it’s very easy to get married, but it’s not easy to build a family and be parents together. And maybe we’ve done it backwards, but we certainly feel married.”
The actress also sounded off on:
Naming her daughter Shiloh:
“It’s a biblical name, but we didn’t name her for that. It was a name my parents almost named their first child ‹ there was a miscarriage: Shiloh Baptist. Because my father had been shooting in Georgia and that was the most southern name [my parents] could come up with. It’s a name I always liked. I used to go under it in hotels: Shiloh Baptist. I’d gone under it when [Brad] called hotel rooms where I was staying.”
Being religious:
“[My mother] stopped going to confession at one point because she was having sex before marriage. To me, she represented what religion should be. She never preached. If things didn’t make sense to her, she never just accepted it. I had Communion, but she never forced me to go to church.
“Brad got me this great thing for Christmas. It’s a bookshelf that has a book on every religion. That’s how we plan to raise our kids. Teach them about all religions. They can pick one or be a student of all of them. We’ll celebrate Kwanzaa for our girl. We’ll celebrate moon and water festivals for our boys. We’ll take them to temples in certain countries. Also to church.”
Losing her mother, Marcheline Bertrand, to cancer:
“When [my mother] passed [in 2007], I realized that somebody who lives life with that kind of dedication to their family is the most noble. I was aware of it growing up. I admired her. And I loved her. But in her passing she reminded me what matters. And what’s most fun: to put yourself aside for these other little people you’re raising.
“Mad always knew my mom was sick. So when [her death] happened, I sat him down and I told him how some people believe there’s a heaven where everybody goes and is together again. And they believe it’s very white and beautiful. And some believe — he’d just seen Casper — there are ghosts who are people and they are always around. And some believe it’s a long peaceful sleep. When I told him, and I was crying, ‘Grand-mère died today, we won’t be able to see her anymore, but she’ll always be around,’ he said, ‘Like she’s here now? Like she’s in that chair?’ And I said, ‘Well, I suppose she could be.’ And he accepted it. It’s funny. It’s like we teach kids the things that we want to believe. Then we see that they have such beautiful faith and it helps them go to bed and we’re in the other room not sleeping well.
“I had to be responsible for getting the morgue to pick [my mother’s] body up. She was in Cedars [Sinai, in Los Angeles]. All I had to do is remind myself that she’s my best girlfriend and she’s not in any more pain. I’m so happy for her. As much as I miss her, I’m a good enough friend not to have wanted her to stay in pain any longer.”
Talking again to dad Jon Voight:
“We don’t really have a relationship, but we’re in contact. And wish each other well. I think we’ve realized there’s been too much discussion. Him discussing me publicly. I’ve had to comment on him. I think it’s best that, if we try to have any relationship in the future, we do it quietly.
She said that she has never seen Voight’s 1979 Oscar-winning performance in Coming Home.
“Because that was when my father left my mom, and the woman who he cheated on her with is in the film,” Jolie says. (When rumors that Jolie had an affair with Pitt while he was wed to Jennifer Aniston, she denied them. “Do I need to defend that I’m a decent woman?” she said.)
(source)
